Team Rocket Set Review - Grass

Despite being a small set, several of the cards of the Team Rocket set were slight upgrades or at least side-grades when compared to previous versions of these pokémon. This set also established grass as a more control-oriented type than before, releasing cards like Dark Vileplume and Dark Muk to punish individual game mechanics, alongside the existing Fossil Muk.

Base-Rocket isn't as popular or iconic as Base-Fossil as far as formats go, so we won't be grading this set in just the context of Base-Rocket. If a card became playable later due to metagame shifts, it deserves a few points for that.

Ekans is a marked improvement over the original Ekans from Fossil, sporting higher HP, and a slightly more respectable first attack. It does miss out on the paralysis potential from Wrap, but everything else about this card is almost strictly better.

Unfortunately Arbok and Dark Arbok decks never would become a major player in any of the WOTC era formats. This is a solid basic that just doesn't have a home in any meta deck.

Grade: 4/10

Dark Arbok exists. Its attack descriptions are impressively long, considering they could have just written "do nothing" to similar effect. Stare may shut down a single Power, but Fossil Muk can just shut down all Powers.

I suppose you could use Poison Vapor to soften up the opponent's board for your main attackers, but with that high energy cost? Dark Arbok continues the tradition of Arbok cards having interesting attacks that ultimately don't fit well into the metagame.

Grade: 4/10

Zubat is a slight improvement over Fossil Zubat. I'd much rather have reliable but boring attacks over a basic that can't do anything with less than 2 energy attached, although this is still only a middling card.

This is not the Zubat most players would choose for Dark Crobat decks in upcoming formats, but it's also not far behind it in terms of viability. The low HP sucks, as always, but free retreat makes it easy to get it out of the spotlight when necessary.

Grade: 4/10

Dark Golbat was immediately usable. Sneak Attack allows it to function like a Pluspower, and this card would only get better with the release of Dark Crobat in the Neo era.

At the time of this card's release it wasn't anywhere near its peak, but it was definitely a huge jump in quality over the original Golbat. Flitter can also be nice as a way to pick off a sufficiently softened 'mon, which has nice synergy with Sneak Attack.

Grade: 6/10

Oddish is interesting. It's actually hard to definitively call it better or worse than Jungle Oddish. It misses out on the damage and paralysis from Stun Spore, but being able to inflict sleep and poison without any coin flips is incredibly alluring.

Oddish does matter to the metagame, too, since Dark Gloom and Dark Vileplume are among the most powerful new additions in the set. Jungle Oddish probably edges it out, but this one's close.

Grade: 5/10

Dark Gloom is a great card that has utility even outside of being a gateway to Dark Vileplume. Pollen Stench can be used while a status-immune card is in the active, such as Jungle Snorlax or Clefairy Doll, in order to get a chance of confusing the enemy with no downside.

It also saw some experimentation as another option for Step In decks, who enjoyed slamming down a Dark Vileplume after they were done setting up. All in all, an incredible card for the time, even if it only really did one thing.

Grade: 7/10

Dark Vileplume was, by a wide margin, the most powerful pokémon that had ever been printed at this time. This one card's ability to shut down trainer cards single-handedly caused upheavals throughout the metagame.

Stall decks that were over-reliant on trainers weakened. Fossil Muk rose to prominence overnight. Lines of play developed around trying to get your Dark Vileplume established before your opponent could finish setting up. Easily the strongest card in the set.

Grade: 10/10

Grimer is worse than its Fossil counterpart in almost every way. Lower HP, no colorless attack, and...a Poison Gas that inflicts sleep?

This is our first example of a game-affecting mistranslation. Poison Gas, as you might have guessed, is supposed to inflict poison, not sleep. WotC ruled that cards must be played as printed which led to various issues during their reign. This card was also censored. Grimer was originally meant to be looking up the girl's miniskirt. Cute.

Grade: 3/10

Dark Muk is better than it looks, but worse than it wants to be. It does a good job of punishing retreat spam strategies, but never became a true metagame staple. Still, it does have some merit in later formats, since the Neo block introduced some very powerful cards with free retreat costs and a dominant Feraligatr card that was weak to grass.

If I had to put Dark Muk decks somewhere on the spectrum, I'd say that it's a competent rogue deck, but I wouldn't go much further than that.

Grade: 6/10

Which Koffing you want to run is largely a matter of preference, although most would prefer Base Koffing for its higher HP. Foul Gas was also a really compelling attack, whereas this Koffing's attacks are boring but consistent.

The fact that it can attack for a single colorless energy is the one big point in its favor, though. This is the one that more commonly sees play in Dark Weezing decks, just because it can do some chip damage on the first turn. I personally prefer the original, though.

Grade: 5/10

Dark Weezing wasn't immediately a smash hit, but it would benefit greatly from cards released in later sets. Brock's Ninetales, in particular, would allow you to get more copies of Koffing and Dark Weezing in play than should be possible, allowing for devastating damage from Mass Explosion.

The grass type would also become more relevant starting in the Neo era, where Riptide Feraligatr was a valid threat in some formats and a meta-warping menace in others.

Grade: 7/10

The grass-type definitely got a bigger boost out of the Team Rocket set than any other type, but considering how underwhelming many of the type's offerings were in Base-Fossil, I would say this is mostly an upward trend.

Dark Vileplume is and was a divisive card, though. It arguably created more problems than it solved, and is one of the first cards that people groan about when discussing the WotC era of the trading card game. It turns out that people like being allowed to actually play the game. Who knew?